Damn, that's pretty wild. They were close to getting a conference auto-bid for the BCS. I suppose they want to schedule their way into prominence now. Good luck beating five or six BCS teams a season guys.

My only question is: why would you want to be the Notre Dame of the West, when Notre Dame is barely "the Notre Dame of the East"? It just doesn't make since. BTW MaizenBlue BP, we on the mgoblog are better than "Notre Lame".

I hate Notre Dame, always will. To me they don't deserve to be called by their actual name. And while you're concerned with blog ethics, i'm concerned with UConn and supporting this team til the end of time.

They think they're joining a stacked MWC with Utah, BYU, and TCU. Two of those teams leave. They're basically going to be in WAC+ starting next year. Wouldn't shock me if TCU leaves in 2013 or 2014 to join a 12-team Big 12 either.

Losing BYU and Utah is rough. However, the MWC will still be the premier non-BCS conference: Boise St, TCU, Air Force, Fresno St.

Good luck to BYU with their schedule. ND gets games because they're ND and I think the Big East helps them out. Once conference play kicks in, I don't see to many teams eye-balling BYU as an opening week opponent in October and November. Teams usually try to schedule the baby seals if they need a non-league opponent to fill a week once October and November roll around.

Brigham Young did have the opener last season with Oklahoma and you can imagine they'll want to continue to play at least one major BCS opponent in September each year. They'll also have their annual game with Utah, but you have to wonder when that game will be played with the Utes in the Pac 12 playing a nine-game conference schedule and possibly going to a conference championship game. Unless Utah wants to accomodate BYU, that game will also be in September.

BYU does have some games scheduled with former WAC opponents, but the ones moving the MWC (Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada) may not be on the schedule in a few years' tiime.

Who does that leave? Obviously, Notre Dame, Army and Navy are all independents and the Big East programs may be looking for a game since there are only eight teams in that conference (leaving five open dates which need scheduling).

But overall, there aren't a lot of choices here and I have to imagine they're positioning themselves towards a possible berth in a reconstituted Big XII with Texas, Oklahoma, et. al.

If I played Olympic sports at BYU, I wouldn't be too happy with what's transpired though. The West Coast Confernce isn't exactly a powerhouse group and I understand there are some sports that Brigham Young has that they don't participate in--what do those guys do when it comes to scheduling, etc.?

I don't feel too bad for Boise State. The NCAA has put in place a lot of rules to create more parity helping these conferences out...despite the fact that these conferences are losing money on football even though they are getting a little bit of BCS money every year.

They already have their own TV network in any house with Dish Network (look for BYUTV), they're in most basic cable packages in the West of the country. They can schedule OOC's with Utah, Utah St, Hawaii (significant Mormon presence there), and fill out the rest of the schedule with WAC schools, a couple Sun Belt and a C-USA team, and maybe one big road trip game per year to a BCS level school for exposure and cash. Guarantee for 6-8 wins every year and a slot in the Hawaii Bowl would be my guess as to what they're hoping to get. As for non-football sports, they'll join the WCC and have an instant rivalry with Gonzaga in hoops. in the long run, hell who knows. I think the positioning to join either a re-expanded Big XII or a 14 team Pac 10 makes the most sense, but if a mid-major can pull this independence thing off, it's BYU.